—————– current events through a historical lens——————————-

Article I, Section II of the U.S. Constitution is all about the House of Representatives. While the first three clauses attract most of the attention and discuss the setup of the House, the last two clauses are equally important and deal with vacancies in the House and that body’s role in impeachment. It is worth noting that vacancies in the Senate are treated much differently both in the original Constitution and after the 17th Amendment.

Clause IV reads as follows, “When vacancies happen in the Representation from any State, the Executive Authority thereof shall issue Writs of Election to fill such Vacancies.”

This clause is rather easy to interpret. When there is a vacancy in the House, later determined as a resignation or death, then the governor of the state can call for an election to replace them. Notice that all the details are decided by the state. As with all elections, the states determine the rules for voting, and in this case even the date.

After Donald Trump’s first term, one would think that most Americans should be more familiar with the impeachment process, but the Fifth Clause is one of the most misunderstood in the Constitution.

Until then it was understandable why people were confused with impeachment as it took 79 years to impeach the first president, Andrew Johnson, then another 130 years until we did it again with Bill Clinton. Yet it only took 21 years to impeach Trump followed by his second impeachment two years later.

Before it discusses impeachment, the Clause begins with, “The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other Officers.”

This first part is also self-explanatory; the House can choose its own Speaker. While those instructions may seem vague, remember that the Founders did not envision parties.

While not officially in the Constitution, today the Speaker is the head of the majority party in the House. Originally, they were seen as a parliamentarian who conducted meetings but did not speak otherwise — like the British system. But starting with Henry Clay, the Speaker is involved and often leads debates on the floor. The Speaker also tends to represent the House to the Senate and the President.

As for impeachment, the instructions are simple, “and [the House] shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.”

Not a lot of detail for something so important. To get a clearer picture of impeachment, read Article I, Section III about the Senate’s role as well as Article II on the Executive Branch.

Article II shows who can be impeached, “President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States” and what they can be impeached for, “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

As a check on such a powerful tool, the impeachment process was divided into two parts: The House impeaches and the Senate holds the trial.

Where the confusion comes is that most people think that impeachment means removal from office. In fact, impeachment only means there is evidence to put the offending person on trial.

We have impeached three presidents, yet we have never removed one. As a side note, remember that Richard Nixon resigned before he was impeached.

The House’s only job is to bring articles of impeachment which means they see enough reason to warrant a trial.

It is important to note that the Constitution does not give any rules for impeachment, but leaves that to the two houses of Congress to determine. This is a political trial, not a legal one. The person on trial is not under jeopardy of jail time. As such, neither house is obligated to follow any legal rules.

Matters like innocent until presumed guilty or confronting witnesses do not apply. With the impeachments of Johnson and Clinton, the evidence was overwhelming; especially with Johnson, there was not even a question. With Trump, even while the evidence was much more circumstantial at best, Democrats held the majority, so he was impeached.

Clause V is only the first-time impeachment mentioned in the Constitution. It will come up again in Section III when the role of the Senate is discussed.

While only the House can start impeachment proceedings, both houses have the ability to adopt resolutions censuring a government official short of impeachment. These are helpful because they do not need approval of the other house.

A censure does not strip the official of any power but is more of a public shaming. The House has only issued one official censure of a president. In 1860, it censured President James Buchanan for awarding government contracts to what it called “party relations.”

James Finck is a professor of American history at the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma. He can be reached at Historically Speaking 1 776@gmail. com.